Name: Sauce Bordelaise
Ingredients: 1 small piece of butter; 2 sliced shallots; 1 tablespoon brown roux or sufficient potato flour; 1 cup clear stock; ⅓ cup claret; 2 tablespoons tomato sauce; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; a pinch of mixed herbs

Why it works: Potato and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,798 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sauce Bordelaise

Ingredients

Directions

Melt the butter in a pan and sauté the sliced shallots until done.
Stir in the brown roux or enough potato flour to absorb the butter.
Add the clear stock, claret, tomato sauce, salt, and pepper, and bring to a boil.
Stir in the mixed herbs just before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,798 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Shallot + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together272 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,898 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Brown roux or potato flour: Thickens the sauce and gives it body by absorbing the butter and binding the liquid.
Claret: Adds wine acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Clear stock: Forms the liquid base of the sauce.
Tomato sauce: Adds acidity, colour and savoury body to the sauce.
Shallots: Add a mild, sweet aromatic flavour when sautéed in butter.

The step that matters

Stir in the roux or potato flour. Flour must be fully incorporated with the butter before the liquid is added; otherwise it can clump and leave the sauce lumpy or uneven in thickness.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, potato, tomato, sauce, pepper):

Capsicumfits better
Onionfits better
Carrotfits better
Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, potato, tomato, sauce, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

Tomato Soup526 recipes

Potato Croquettes255 recipes

Cream of Tomato Soup107 recipes

Potato Rolls78 recipes

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Sauce Bordelaise